I've had it for a couple of weeks for the GC (jap verssion) and its amazing.

fav characters are..

Akuma
Evil Ryu
Iori
Ryo (not the ken wannabe, but the other guy who has no dragon and looks like a kid)
and character from Samurai Showdown (guy in the middle of the character select screen with sword)

Great game...

and to the guy who asked about arcade sticks i have found about 4 of them here in the uk...